Ducks General Manager Pat Verbeek spent some time with media Friday morning to review the past season and give some insight of what's ahead for the Ducks. Verbeek is currently in Toronto, where tonight he will watch Ducks prospect Mason McTavish play for the Hamilton Bulldogs in Game 4 of their OHL Playoffs series vs. Mississauga.
Ducks GM Verbeek Reviews Season, Discusses What's to Come for Anaheim
On how much scouting he is doing
As much as I can. It's kind of my background, and I love to do it. I have a thirst for knowledge to know players, and so I'm going to do it. And so working with all our scouts, making sure I have knowledge of the players that we're gonna be discussing and in the summertime trying to sign them is important.
On how the Ducks season went
Well it was going decent. They were in a playoff spot in February. And then obviously things took a turn in the sense that the team lost four pretty good players out of the lineup. And so that was a big chunk. And I think that was probably the hardest part going through that process of, trading those players away. But I felt, like I told you guys before, we couldn't let guys walk away. And this was a chance to really set up the franchise to be to put it in a good position down the road to build a lot of depth through the entire organization, whether it's in the minors and up top with the Anaheim Ducks.
And so when I felt that I couldn't get the guy signed, that's when I made the decision to do that. And now we have a lot of draft picks over the next three years, and now it's gonna be the responsibility of us to draft well, and to set this franchise up to be good down the road to really start to look at being a winning team, a contending team and eventually, hopefully, a championship team.
On whether trading away those players was influenced by team performance
No, it was unavoidable. At the end of the day, the players have the right to make the decisions that they wanted to make. And so whether the team was in the playoffs or not, like I said before, I got the sense that I wasn't gonna have a chance to resign them. And so that's kind of when I decided to go a different way.
On changes to the Gulls coaching staff
I just thought that everyone needed to do a reset, everyone needed a fresh slate, and that was the reason. And it wasn't really any deeper than that, just certain things that happened over the course of the year. I really don't wanna get into that sort of stuff. But I just felt that everyone needed a clean slate, Joel needed a clean slate and his staff needed a clean slate.
On offseason player moves via trade or free agency
There are lots of possibilities, whether we're gonna be able to execute them, that's another [factor]. I mean, you could talk about the free agent market. There's gonna be lots of people competing for the same players that we are, so at the end of the day, the players are gonna decide. We're gonna sell and make our pitch. But at the end of the day, the free agent market players are gonna decide. Will there be other opportunities as far as trades? Absolutely. There will be opportunities, but I can't tell you what they are. There's gonna be things that are there. There were teams that came forward that I had no idea would come forward at the trade deadline, and that's gonna be the same thing that's gonna happen just prior to the Draft.
On hiring a new assistant coach
Dallas and I've kind of kicked that one around a little, right now we're gonna take a little time to decide exactly what our needs are and what we want. We, haven't made a final decision on the parameters of the kind of guy that we're looking to get. So it, it's kind of really wide open from that aspect.
On free agency
My overall approach to free agency is to improve the team. So obviously we have some spots and defense that are open. We're gonna have some spots that are open on the forward side. So we're gonna look to fill those slots as best we can.
On the approach to the draft
For me, what's really important is hockey sense and compete. Those are two vital things that I'm going to be looking for in players. You you have to have those elements to be able to win. Every general manager has their own vision. When it comes to drafting players, I have my vision. I'm going to communicate that to all of our amateur scouts, and we're gonna make the list based on that.
On Troy Terry, Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale
I would consider them core pieces. I thought they had nice seasons, but as I told all three of 'em, there's so much more upside into where their games can go and I gave them specific areas that I I'm looking for them to improve in. And I think if they look at those specific areas and really attend to them, I think things will improve drastically for the Anaheim Ducks with those three players.
On college prospects Henry Thrun and Jackson LaCombe staying in school
The last I communicated with them, they were committed to signing with the Ducks, but they felt that they wanted needed another year of school to kind of round out their games to make themselves better prepared for the pro game. I've been watching them for years now, and I'm very confident in their ability to be able to play in the NHL one day.
On the team needing to get faster and stronger
I know we're not as fast as the rest of the NHL. That's just my viewpoint. And so we have to make improvements there. There are certain elements when it comes to competing we have to have, but the strength isn't there. It's not good enough, no.
